Pandagon is daily opinion blog covering feminism, politics, and pop culture. Come for the politics, stay for the complete lack of patience for the B.S. and bad faith coming from conservative leaders and pundits.

ABC News’ Teddy Davis and Rigel Anderson Report: John McCain’s campaign signaled on Wednesday that the Arizona senator is backing away from his previously stated goal of changing the GOP’s platform on abortion.

…McCain’s decision to leave the platform untouched follows a warning from a prominent social conservative.

“If he were to change the party platform,” to account for exceptions such as rape, incest or risk to the mother’s life, “I think that would be political suicide,” Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, told ABC News in May. “I think he would be aborting his own campaign because that is such a critical issue to so many Republican voters and the Republican brand is already in trouble.”

…“If he doesn’t change the platform, then he’s being the same kind of hypocrite that he accused Bush of being in 2000,” Jennifer Blei Stockman, the co-chairwoman of Republican Majority for Choice, told ABC News in May.

If McCain picks a pro-choice VP, watch out; Dobson et. al. will explode. Or at least I would expect the hypocrite of Colorado Springs to do so; after all, he’s already had to eat crow for coming around for the Arizona senator after swearing he’d stay home rather than vote for him. In fact, in 2000, he said this about McCain:

“The Senator,” Dobson said, “is being touted by the media as a man of principle, yet he was involved with other women while married to his first wife, and was implicated in the so-called Keating scandal with four other senators. He was eventually reprimanded by the Congress for the ‘appearance of impropriety.’ The Senator reportedly has a violent temper and can be extremely confrontational and profane when angry. These red flags about Senator McCain’s character are reminiscent of the man who now occupies the White House.”

Gee Daddy D, how has it all changed for you these days?

Speaking of drop-kicks and pressure on McCain from the fundies as he hones in on his Veep pick, conservative Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com (always good for a press release to beat on who he thinks is too soft to be a true conservative), wrote a hilarious open letter to the presumptive GOP nominee– it’s below the fold. What a wedgie this is.

The buzz in recent days has been that some of your key aides were calling national and state GOP leaders to alert them to the possibility that you were seriously considering a pro-abortion running mate and to take their temperature on such a selection.

As Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal asked: Are you politically “stupid” or do you care little for conservative principles?

It also shows that you don’t understand why the Republican brand has taken a massive beating in recent years. You clearly don’t comprehend why millions of conservatives are off the Republican reservation and sitting on the political sidelines.

Your indication that you’re willing to put a person who has a clear, unequivocal pro-abortion record within a heartbeat of the presidency is alarming.

Pro-life conservatives understand that, to change the laws to protect innocent life, first and foremost, we need good, articulate leadership–from the president and vice president.

To put it as simply and clearly as I can, most Republican leaders at the national and state level have betrayed, abandoned, and sold out the principles that define conservatism. Talk of selecting a pro-abortion liberal Republican (Tom Ridge) or, even worse, a pro-abortion liberal Democrat (Joe Lieberman) drives the Republican brand lower and lower.

Your apparent interest in selecting a running mate who is out of sync ideologically with the vast majority of conservatives reinforces the image of the Republican Party as a party without principle and dedicated to one proposition above all others – the seeking, acquiring, obtaining, and holding onto power.

Senator McCain, you are exceedingly proud of being a political maverick – you wear it as a badge of honor.

Well, poke the base of the Republican Party – the conservatives – in the eye one more time by choosing a pro-abortion vice presidential candidate and conservatives will show you that two can play the maverick game.

Conservatives are people with proudly held principles. We’re now waiting to see if you share our principles.

Sincerely,

Richard A. Viguerie
Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement” (The Nation magazine) and one of the “conservatives of the century” (The Washington Times). His latest book is Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books), which, Jerome Corsi wrote in WorldNetDaily, is “destined to become a classic of conservative thinking” and “may be the most important conservative book written in the last quarter century.”